


The Sacred Dish Of Ilion

by SpencerMalloy



Category: The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Achilles is an edgelord and so are you, Cannibalism, M/M, Other, This is shitty but it impressed my teacher, don't worry guys it'll be lit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 03:43:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpencerMalloy/pseuds/SpencerMalloy
Summary: English assignment. Achilles eats Hector's body to prevent his family from taking his body back and giving it proper burial rights. Disclaimer: No idea what the ancient Greeks actually thought about cannibalism but judging from the cyclops parts of the Illiad I'm gonna say they didn't like it.





	The Sacred Dish Of Ilion

Achilles would have eaten him had it been allowed. He would have eaten him. He stared down at the preserved body, still looking as fresh as when just slaughtered. A spell. Magic from the gods no doubt. His efforts to destroy this heathen had failed and once more he sat alone in his quarters, drinking more wine than a drunkard left in the sewers overnight. Perhaps this was what led him to what happened next. Perhaps it was an excuse. None of it mattered now.

            Tomorrow he was set to repeat the actions of that day and the days prior, how many had it been now? He had lost track. Time blurred together like all the threads of an intricately woven rug, his vision red as the callouses of the slaves who wove them. What use was there now for intricate rugs? What use did he have for slaves? The finer things meant nothing to him, a man of great wealth and of great status, if there was no one to look upon them with. If he had to live another day then what was his motivation? The answer to this was simple: There was none. Where he looked for solace he found none. Where he looked for love he found none. Where he looked for the sweet release from his sorrow, from his anguish, he found none.  

            His hair grew matted and his skin greased over. There was no point in washing the blood from his hands; there was no point in changing his soiled tunic. Though he was urged to do so he refused. He could not find it in himself to carry out these simple tasks, tasks he had not thought once about when they were luxuries. For why would he care about the dismay of those who looked upon him and thought: _Our lord Achilles has fallen. His grace shines no longer, the stars gone from his eyes, the roses gone from his cheeks. His limber elegance, tense and rough to the plain eye. Is he there any longer?_ No. No, Achilles would never again be the same man from before this tragedy. His mind had changed, his soul had deserted him in a field plagued with traps. Every place he looked he saw traces of what had been and what would no longer be. What could never be again.

            The dogs were too good for Hector. The scene of the slaughter replayed in his mind, his renewed armor glowing as if he himself were plague-bringer Apollo, and if so he felt then be so he must. Hector’s blood overflowed. This was more than a simple killing, this meant more. There was more behind the motivation than the simplicities of war, this was bloodlust, this was carnage more personal than what could be experienced on the green with a spear. Hector’s family looked on as it happened. They were allowed the time to come to terms with the death of their beloved son, their beloved son who had seen Patroclus from behind. Patroclus, unarmed, wounded, the helmet knocked off his very head and his armor loosened. Loosened enough for the strike to hit him, the will of plague-bringer Apollo being carried out by a less than satisfactory soldier. His will had succeeded in one sense but failed in another, but what was Apollo to care? Apollo. Immortal. The god of healing striking down the wounded, the epitome of class and civility sinking to the brutality of man. Achilles’ glossy eyes hovered on Hector’s cold body. He would eat him himself if he didn’t know the consequences of such sacrilege.

            Achilles was only vaguely aware of the copious troubles he was bringing upon the Achaean forces, and slightly less aware of the way he was hurting the people around him. Even if he knew of these things there was no changing them, no fixing them. His actions were decided when Hector killed his love, and for such horrors he would pay, even if his toll was to be collected post mortem.

            Hector’s tunic was torn to rags, a once noble man now dead on the floor of his quarters. On the other nights, Achilles had left Hector out with the dogs, guarded and secure from pillagers and protected from the would-be collection of his family. A pyre was too good for this scoundrel, a simple cooking fire was too good for him!

            _Too good for him_ , Achilles thought, _But it will have to do._

            For what was another sin to a condemned man? What was one more tally on the chart of grievances listed against him? Achilles was fated to die if he fought, and fight he did, so die he must. There was no escaping this simple truth, this horror that haunted his nightmares along with the corpse of his mutilated lover, his armor stolen along with his dignity, along with his right to die in honorable battle. There was no honor in his life any longer, not on the battlefield, not in his long since mangled soul. What was one more sacrilege committed by the sacrilegious?

            The fire stretched high into the air when he was done tending it. It was smaller than one for sacred burial rights, about the same size as the fire for the cows. The spit was ready for his meal, the most sacred of all. None of it mattered now.


End file.
